AAUP Updates: BOT Meeting and more!

I hope this message finds you well and that you are staying warm as we feel the temperatures drop. The AAUP Executive Committee has a couple of quick but important updates for this week.

1. Tonight (11/18) is the Board of Trustees meeting. Our own Joan Gough will be speaking during the open comments period. PLEASE try to attend and show support for Joan and Montgomery College. The open session section starts at 8pm.

2. Staff and Administrator “pay for performance” and bonuses: Brenda Braham, on behalf of Staff Council, submitted a Maryland Public Information Act (FOIA) request to Ms. Porter regarding bonuses for staff and pay for performance for administrators. The results of the FOIA were forwarded to the AAUP and are as follows:

This fiscal year, $431,187.74 will go to administrators for pay that exceeds and far exceeds performance

Out of the 83 total number of administrative employees, 72 qualified for pay performance increases (86.7%)

3.5% bonus = 4 administrators

4.5% bonus = 24 administrators

5.5% bonus = 44 administrators

72 total

There are 534 bargaining staff and 692 non-bargaining staff. Out of these 1226 employees, 596 exceeded performance and 306 far exceeded performance. This equals a total of 902 bonuses.

Rocky Sorrell, the general counsel for Montgomery College, originally presented this information

The AAUP executive committee find this information troubling to the spirit of ‘equity’ and ‘common employee experience’ as the vast majority of non-faculty received this bonus/pay-for-performance and yet faculty are excluded from eligibility. We hope and urge the administration to discuss restoring equity for all members of the college.

3. Faculty Salary Placement Inequity: We have analyzed all of the current salaries of faculty relative to their years of experience and the number of points at which they started on the initial salary placement scale (for prior experience, credentials, etc.) Most of the data follows the expected trend of showing higher salaries associated with longer tenure at Montgomery College and/or greater numbers of placement points. At this point, we are still analyzing the data, and we are not yet certain if any of the data represent “outliers” and not appropriate salaries. Should we find any salaries that we conclude are inappropriately low given the college’s own policies and standards, we will let those faculty members know at that time.

4. Contract Violations: As fast as the college is changing is as slow as the college is issuing an official response to our two submitted contract violations. Our violations were submitted on September 13, 2013. We have been urging the college for the past two months to resolve these concerns. On November 13, the college’s legal representation stated that it does not have all the facts. We were very surprised by this response considering the length of time they have had to collect the facts. It appears that the legal counsel for the college is either ignoring or stalling on what we view as major violations of the contract. We will continue discussions with our counsel on the appropriate legal steps moving forward.

UPDATE: Just before sending this email I did get word that the two attorneys will be meeting. I will update you with the results.

5. Labor/Management Cooperation Committee (LMCC): Last year, members of the AAUP Executive Committee began attending bi-monthly meetings with representatives of the college to address work related issues. The goal was to discuss and possibly rectify issues before they became larger problems. While the meetings were organized with positive intentions the results were mixed. Some of last year’s issues included the need to separate the qualifications for full-time/part-time awards (still waiting), troubles with online evaluations (the original pilot project became institutionalized with no real analysis of its effectiveness), and raising the distance education size limit from 20 to 25 (the result was a managerial unilateral decision). As you can see our participation in the LMCC did not impact the above issues. This year, the LMCC will reconvene and we hope we will be able to more work more collaboratively. Please keep corresponding with your AAUP representatives as your issues often become talking points at the LMCC meetings.

***This week should be interesting (please see this morning’s email concerning the leadership transition sent by Dr. Pollard). I will be meeting with Dr. Pollard this morning to review these changes Please look for further updates in the upcoming days. Thank you and have a great week!

The mission of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is to advance academic freedom and shared governance, to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education, and to ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good. Founded in 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country’s colleges and universities.

Comments

I’d like to comment on number 2 above since I provided the information. Administrators receive a pay for performance increment that is added to their base, not officially a bonus. Those who “meet” expectations received 3.5% like other employees. Those who “exceeded” received an additional 1%; those who “far exceeded” received an additional 2%.

Many staff were upset because, according to CSC agreements, those same categories could achieve “up to” $1,000 or $2,000. Instead, the pot of money set aside for 1,226 staff only amounted to $300,000. This resulted in staff getting a one time, lump sum bonus of $250 or $500.

We agree that this is troubling and not in the spirit of equity and a common employee experience and we urge officials to rethink these policies for all employees of Montgomery College.